Ted Devine recently wrote an article about?conducting a midyear assessment of one?s business, that I highly recommend.? But simply getting through the quarter can be a challenge for some business owners.
At some point or other, just about every business owner faces a difficult time with a limited ?budget. You know the feeling: ?another month goes by, but the bills seem to come in faster than the sales.
If you?ve ever felt that way, give The Pocket Small Business Owner?s Guide to Starting Your Business On a Shoestring by Carol Tice (@TiceWrites) a try. It is terrific guide for budding business owners.? Tice has built a strong online reputation advising hundred of writers at her award-winning site Making A Living Writing as well as at The Freelance Writers Den.
I read an advance review copy of this book sent to the Small Business Trends team. The book will be available in July 2013 and I was really impressed with its potential to save small business owners headaches and costs.
In The End We?re All Freelancers
One of the reasons Tice succeeds with this guide is because of her experience as a freelancer and dealing with freelancers.? Be it a writer or a coder, freelancers have the most disciplined mindset, crucial for survival.? With her experience, Tice has written a basic, yet innovative, primer on small business tactics that need to be organized.
Tice is right in sharing stories of businesses that ?overspent and ran out of money.? ?Every business owner who succeeds understands that cash is king.
But Tice, through her experience with writers, shows how to set the crown.? Freelancers are exposed to cash ebb and flow. So the most battle-hardened freelancer will have the best hacks to get started.? Thus Tice excels in workable suggestions that can be implemented easily while leaving room for the small business owner to modify to their needs.
The chapter on a business plan is a fine example.? The chapter focuses on plan highlights.? Although some business plans require extensive details, Tice suggests a way to network while learning from a viable business plan example:
Make friends with business owners in your industry who operate in a different market and are not your competitors. ?Then, ask if you could possibly see a plain vanilla copy of their business plans. That?s a copy with all the budget lines for income and costs in their profit and loss statements ? with all the figures erased. Since this doesn?t reveal much about how their business is doing, many owners are willing to provide this blanket budget.
Note the efficiency this suggestion creates ? building an effective network while asking for what you need.? Furthermore, the guide structures proper methods to networking ? a topic raised in the book?No You Can?t Pick My Brain, It Costs Too Much. A chapter on training suggests great ways to build skills, while another covers the nature of partnerships.
The Right Controls for An Efficient Business
The way that Tice examines details is an inspiration for doing things right. Doing things right may sound like faint praise for the book ? of course you read a book like this to start a business the right way.? But don?t mistake my words for a lack of enthusiasm and respect. Tice nails the right tactics that lead to genuine progress in managing costs, an outcome often touted by other ?experts? but usually delivered as weak short cuts.
Thus Tice?s suggestions break past the steps that incrementally eats up a planned budget.? Tice rightfully notes how digital methods like SEO and social media are part of a marketing plan.? She suggests how to garner input while ditching costly focus groups. ???She tackles brick-and-mortar business needs as well.? Check out her facility suggestion for restaurant owners:
If you?re thinking about opening a retail store or restaurant, a lower-risk way to try out your concept is to put it on wheels.? A food or merchandise truck can easily test out different neighborhood locations to find the best one.
Another thought reminder questions shipping costs:
Pay for the speed you need ?when your business is the one ordering supplies, keep the shipping rules in mind, too. ?Strive to leave enough time to order goods on the ?slow boat? to get the lowest rates. Avoid paying for pricey rush or overnight shipping.
Some segments of this book will have to be weighed against the small business being planned. ?Some industries demand a more detailed business plan than what is explained, for example. Others will be perfectly suited with a simple plan.
I heartily recommend The Pocket Small Business Owners Guide to Starting on a Shoestring to figure out how to time expenses in a business. ??Tice delivers a serviceable guide that can take potential business owners from non-revenue to meaningful operations, all with a minimal investment and without the get-rich-quick tactics from illogical talking heads.
When any business owner makes an assessment of the first year, he or she will see this book for what it is ? a great gift for anyone looking for success with a shoestring business.
About Pierre DeBois
Pierre DeBois is the founder of Zimana, a consultancy providing strategic analysis to small and medium sized businesses that rely on web analytics data. A Gary, Indiana native, Pierre is currently based in Brooklyn. He blogs about marketing, finance, social media, and analytics at Zimana blog.
Mark Cerny, architect of Sony?s upcoming PlayStation 4 gaming console, made some interesting and frank observations about the mistakes that Sony made with the launch of the PlayStation 3.
In a speech at the Gamelab?conference in Barcelona, Cerny acknowledged Sony?s mistakes with the PS3, and he said that these experiences explain why Sony is taking a more collaborative and simpler technology approach with the design of the PlayStation 4. Here?s part one of our coverage of Cerny?s talk.
Sony
PS3 game engine design times stretched out.
Sony?s PS3 foibles are well-known in the video game industry, and they explain why the company fell behind both Microsoft and Nintendo during the last generation, after dominating the preceding era with the PlayStation 2. Sony representatives have rarely discussed the criticism and details behind those mistakes. While Cerny led the design of the PS4, which comes out this fall, he is a consultant at Cerny Games and isn?t a full-time Sony lifer. That might explain why he was more frank in describing the PS3?s problems and how they contributed to an improved design for the PS4.
Cerny can talk about these issues because they happened a while ago, and, for the most part, they weren?t his fault. Consequently, people can lay the responsibility for the success of the PlayStation business and the weaknesses of the PS3 squarely at the feet of Ken Kutaragi, the father of the PlayStation business at Sony.
The PS3 project started auspiciously enough in 2001 when, at the peak of Sony?s success with the PlayStation 2, Kutaragi announced that Sony, Toshiba, and IBM would collaborate on the Cell microprocessor that would become the heart of what would become the PlayStation 3. Hundreds of engineers designed the chip over several years, and it represented a radical departure from typical single-graphics-chip, single-processor blueprints. The Cell had eight cores, dubbed Special Processing Elements (SPEs). It was powerful but complex.
Shuhei Yoshida, then head of Sony?s game studios in the U.S., received approval to embed a team of game programmers ? including Cerny ? inside the PS3 hardware team to explore game creation. Cerny became a member of a team dubbed ICE, which stood for the Initiative for a Common Engine, whose job was to envision the titles of the next generation. Yoshida?s idea was to get games in development as much as a year earlier in order to be ready for the launch. It was a good thought, but, in reality, it wasn?t early enough.
In the summer of 2003, Cerny went to Japan to study the Cell. He had expected ?something from a James Bond movie? but found that a small number of people was driving the project. The Cell design was already done.
Cerny looked at the documentation behind Kutaragi?s design.?He saw that the chip was powerful but only if you could really master the SPEs.
Sony
Sony focused too much on hardware, not software.
?The [SPEs] had huge potential, but huge effort was required to program them,? he said.
You had to take an operation and break it down into subroutines and then dispatch each to a subprocessor. Once you learned how to do that, it was like solving a very complex puzzle. Cerny admired the technology but didn?t realize it would lead to a console that would be too expensive.
?I stayed focused on how to best use the chip that had already been designed,? Cerny said.
Cerny said it was exciting to work on the new hardware but scary because it was hard to figure out how to make the most basic tasks work. For Sony?s first-party team of internal game developers, the early insight was a huge advantage. Thinking only about their own interests, the Sony dev teams thought about how they would have a ?tremendous lead over third parties? who would not learn about how to program the machine until much later. They didn?t understand at this time that this would become the console?s main weakness.
?We were thinking about our own game titles for SCEA?[Sony Computer Entertainment America] in the U.S., not the platform at all,? he said.
By early 2005, the focus shifted to creating launch titles for the PS3, which had?a holiday 2006 launch. But game makers found very little support. Sony?s engineers had not yet created a quality debugger for the SPEs. A low-level graphics driver (code that helps titles talk to the hardware) did not exist and neither did a graphics chip debugger or performance tools. The first-party game developers were having a hard time, and the third-party teams were even worse off. But Sony eventually realized that third parties were essential to the success of its system.
Cerny figured out that it took six months for teams to create an engine that would enable the prototypes that were a necessary part of finishing games. That compared to three-to-six months for the PS2 and one-to-two months for the original PlayStation. The new technology delivered gorgeous final releases, but the complexity had gone up an order of magnitude.
The result, Cerny admitted, was a ?weak launch lineup.?
Leonard Lee
PlayStation 4
He said, ?Anyone who lived through those times understands the need for international communication, the value of frank and open conversations, software tools, and the role of third parties.?
Cerny didn?t disclose everything that went wrong with the PlayStation 3. One of the biggest crises came as the team tried to figure out how to program the Sony-designed graphics chip. The complicated hardware?didn?t take into account a revolution that had happened in PC gaming, where graphics chip maker Nvidia had pioneered a new technique dubbed ?programmable shading.? With it, developers could run a graphics program on every single pixel of a game scene, allowing for much greater complexity in 3D images.
Sony scrapped its in-house graphics chip and, at the last minute, signed a deal with Nvidia to provide its RSX custom graphics chip for the PS3. Cerny glossed over the big change in plans, but he acknowledged that the team had to ?scrap? a lot of work. This, along with the decision to include a Blu-ray media player in the PS3 led to a considerable delay in the launch of the console. Overall, the cost of the Cell and the accompanying technology forced Sony to price the initial machine at $599. It launched in 2006, a full year after Microsoft?s Xbox 360 debuted.
At first, Sony?s game lineup was weak. Microsoft closed the gap in both technology and game quality, but Nintendo surprised both with the launch of the motion-sensing Wii game console. In 2010, Microsoft made a comeback with the launch of its Kinect motion sensor, and Sony lagged behind. It went from complete dominance with the PS2 to third place with the PS3.
Did Sony learn from its PS3 failures? We?ll find out this fall.
U.S. President Barack Obama gestures during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the German Chancellery on Wednesday, June 19, 2013, in Berlin. Obama will renew his call to reduce the world's nuclear stockpiles, including a proposed one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian arsenals, a senior administration official said. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
U.S. President Barack Obama gestures during a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the German Chancellery on Wednesday, June 19, 2013, in Berlin. Obama will renew his call to reduce the world's nuclear stockpiles, including a proposed one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian arsenals, a senior administration official said. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The last thing President Barack Obama wants to do is turn Edward Snowden into a grand enemy of the state or a Daniel Ellsberg-type hero who speaks truth to power.
In the shifting narrative of the Obama administration, the man whose leaks of top-secret material about government surveillance programs have tied the national security apparatus in knots and brought charges under the Espionage Act has now been demoted to a common fugitive unworthy of international intrigue or extraordinary pursuit by the U.S. government.
A "29-year-old hacker," in the words of Obama; fodder for a made-for-TV movie, perhaps, but not much more.
"This is not exceptional from a legal perspective," the president said Thursday of Snowden's efforts to avoid capture by hopscotching from Hawaii to Hong Kong to Russia.
"I'm not going to have one case of a suspect who we're trying to extradite suddenly being elevated to the point where I've got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues simply to get a guy extradited," the president told reporters in Senegal.
It was the second time in a week that the administration had toned down its rhetoric as Snowden remained out of reach and first China and then Russia refused to send him back.
Just Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry was talking tough against China and calling Snowden a traitor whose actions are "despicable and beyond description." By Tuesday, Kerry was calling for "calm and reasonableness" on the matter, and adding, "We're not looking for a confrontation. We are not ordering anybody."
There are plenty of reasons for Obama to pull back, beyond his professed desire to avoid international horse-trading for the leaker.
The president, in his own words, has "a whole lot of business to do with China and Russia." Why increase tensions in an already uneasy relationship when Obama is looking for Russia's cooperation in finding a path to peace in Syria, for example?
In addition, less-heated dialogue could make it easier to broker Snowden's return because, despite the latest shrugs, U.S. officials very much want him.
"There's a lot of signaling going on," said Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "If the White House were issuing ultimatums, then Russia might feel obliged not to cooperate. But if it's merely one request among many others, that might make it easier to advance to a resolution."
The president also may have a U.S. audience in mind for his comments.
Obama's Democratic base includes plenty of defenders of civil liberties who are sympathetic to Snowden's professed goal of making government more transparent.
Benjamin Pauker, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, said the president was loath to elevate Snowden to a state enemy or "an Ellsberg-type truth-teller," referring to the 1971 leaker of the Pentagon Papers, which showed the U.S. government had misled the public about the war in Vietnam.
Ellsberg himself recently called Snowden's revelations the most significant disclosures in the nation's history.
The administration, though, would rather marginalize Snowden, a former National Security Agency systems analyst who is thought to have custody of more classified documents.
"Calling him a hacker, as opposed to a government contractor or an NSA employee, brings him down a notch to someone who's an irritant, as opposed to someone who has access to integral intelligence files," Pauker said. "To externalize him and brand him with a black-hat hacker tag distances him from the government."
The disdainful talk isn't just coming from the White House.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, called Snowden "a high school dropout who had a whole series of both academic troubles and employment troubles" after a recent closed hearing on the leaks. The committee's top Democrat, C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger from Maryland, called Snowden "a legend in his own mind" for claiming to be able to use NSA systems to access any email or phone call anywhere ? something the NSA's director has said can't be done.
There may also be face-saving benefits for Obama in cutting down Snowden, who turned 30 last week. An unsuccessful full-court press for Snowden's return would only show the limitations of Obama's international influence.
It's not the first time a president has tried to reset expectations by first elevating and then playing down the importance of an international fugitive who eluded capture, at least for a time.
President George W. Bush went from putting out a "dead-or-alive" ultimatum for 9-11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden to dismissing him as "a person who's now been marginalized."
"I just don't spend that much time on him," Bush said in March 2002.
Candidate Barack Obama pledged during the 2008 presidential campaign: "We will kill bin Laden, we will crush al-Qaida. That has to be our biggest national security priority."
By January 2009, just days before his inauguration, Obama was saying: "My preference, obviously would be to capture or kill him. But if we have so tightened the noose that he's in a cave somewhere and can't even communicate with his operatives, then we would meet our goal of protecting America."
As it turned out, he got him.
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AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.
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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac
PHOENIX (AP) ? Tigers at the Phoenix Zoo are getting frozen fish snacks. Temporary cooling stations are popping up to welcome the homeless and elderly. And airlines are monitoring the soaring temperatures to make sure it's safe to fly as the western U.S. falls into the grips of a dangerous heat wave.
A strong high-pressure system settling over the region Friday and through the weekend will bring extreme temperatures even to the typically blazing Southwest. Notoriously hot Death Valley in California is forecast to reach 129 degrees, not far off the world-record high of 134 logged there exactly one century ago.
The National Weather Service is calling for 118 in Phoenix, and 117 in Las Vegas on Sunday ? a mark reached only twice in Sin City.
Temperatures are expected to soar even as far north as Reno, Nev., across Utah and into parts of Wyoming and Idaho, where forecasters are calling for triple-digit heat in the Boise area through the weekend.
Cities in Washington state better known for cool, rainy weather should break the 90s early next week, while northern Utah ? marketed as having "the greatest snow on Earth" ? is expected to hit triple digits. In Albuquerque, N.M., the mercury hit 105 on Thursday afternoon, the hottest it has been in the state's most populous city in 19 years.
"This is the hottest time of the year but the temperatures that we'll be looking at for Friday through Sunday, they'll be toward the top. We'll be at or above record levels in the Phoenix area and throughout a lot of the southwestern United States," said National Weather Service meteorologist Mark O'Malley. "It's going to be baking hot across much of the entire West."
Jennifer Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center based in Idaho, said crews are especially worried about wildfires igniting in the Four Corners region where the borders of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona intersect.
Some of the strongest parts of the high pressure system are expected to be parked over the area through the weekend, where forecasters are calling for lightning but little to no precipitation, Smith said.
The hottest cities are taking precautions to protect vulnerable residents. Police are pleading with drivers not to leave children or pets in vehicles, and temporary cooling stations are being put up to shelter homeless people and the elderly on fixed incomes who hesitate to use air conditioning.
Officials said extra personnel have been added to the U.S. Border Patrol's Search, Trauma, and Rescue unit as people illegally crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona could succumb to exhaustion and dehydration. At least seven people have been found dead in the last week in Arizona after falling victim to the desert's brutal heat.
Even airlines are watching the mercury for any signs that temperatures could deter operations.
In June 1990, when Phoenix hit 122 degrees, several airlines, including America West, which later merged with US Airways, were forced to cease flights for several hours because the planes didn't have the data needed to know how they would fly in temperatures above 120 degrees.
US Airways spokesman Todd Lehmacher said the airline's fleet of Boeings can now fly up to 126 degrees, and up to 127 degrees for the Airbus fleet.
But the company's smaller express planes flying out of the Phoenix area may be delayed if the temperature tops 118 because as the air heats up, it becomes less dense and changes liftoff conditions.
"The hotter is it, your performance is degraded," Lehmacher said. "We're monitoring this very closely to see what the temperatures do."
Officials at Salt River Project, the Phoenix area's largest electricity provider, also are closely monitoring usage in order to redirect energy in case of a potential overload.
Company spokeswoman Scott Harelson said he doesn't expect usage to get anywhere near SRP's record 6,663 megawatts consumed in August 2011.
"While it's hot, people tend to leave town and some businesses aren't open, so that has a tendency to mitigate demand and is why we typically don't set records on weekends," Harelson said.
Meanwhile, over at the Phoenix Zoo, animals from elephants to warthogs will be doused with hoses and sprayed with sprinklers and misters throughout the weekend.
The tigers will get frozen fish snacks while the lions can lounge on concrete slabs cooled by internal water-filled pipes, said zoo spokeswoman Linda Hardwick.
"And they'll all have plenty of shade," she said. "The keepers will all just be very active looking for any behavior changes, anything that would tip them off that an animal is just getting too hot."
In Las Vegas, two Elvis impersonators and a performer costumed as the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign said they still planned to keep up their routine of working the tourist corridor in the broad daylight and turning in for the evenings, heat notwithstanding.
"We'd much rather fight with the sun than fight with the drunk people," Elvis impersonator Cristian Morales said.
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Associated Press writers Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, Julie Jacobson and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque contributed to this report.
Nevada Gaming Control Board chief A.G. Burnett told Congress it was ?common knowledge? that Macau?s VIP gaming rooms have ?long been dominated by Asian organized crime.? Burnett made the comments on Thursday while addressing the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which is investigating alleged money laundering activities in the Asian gambling hot spot. Burnett suggested that since the arrival in Macau of three US-based casino companies ? Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts ? ?much of those triad activities had actually decreased in one fashion or another.?
However, at least two of those operators ? Sands and Wynn ? are currently the subjects of US federal investigations regarding their Asian activities. Asked whether Nevada regulators had ever seen fit to punish a US operator for its activities in Macau, Burnett admitted they hadn?t, but suggested that the operators had nonetheless ?suffered? due to their footing the bill for Burnett and his ilk to fly out to Macau on fact-finding missions. ?Travel to China is not cheap.?
Burnett said he believes US casino operators in Macau are conducting satisfactory due diligence on their junket partners, but Burnett also claimed the junket operators? influence was on the decline thanks to the casinos? new preference for the higher margins offered by so-called ?premium mass? tables, which don?t operate on credit, eliminating the need for junkets. Burnett said there would be no need for junket operators if China would only loosen restrictions on its citizens? ability to take money out of the country. The RMB 20k (US $3,240) limit is ill-suited to the financial needs of China?s high-rollers, leaving them little alternative but to seek out junket operators or engage in some creative dealings with Macau?s pawnshops.
The political appointees conducting Thursday?s hearing were a singularly unimpressed lot. Commission member and former GOP senator Jim Talent said the truth was that ?we really don?t have any idea what?s going on in Macau,? while fellow commissioner Michael Wessel described the casino-junket relationship as ?so complex it reminds me of a Rube Goldberg-style equation.? The Commission strongly suggested that Treasury Department assistant secretary for terrorist financing Daniel Glaser should increase scrutiny of Macau?s casino industry. It?s worth noting that in 2011, the US State Department claimed a direct link between Macau casinos and terrorist financing, only to backtrack when challenged to back up these allegations with, you know, evidence.
MACAU CRACKS LOAN SHARK GANG As if on cue, Macau?s Judiciary Police (JP) have just announced the takedown of what they claim is the biggest loan-sharking gang the city has seen in over a decade. The Macau Post Daily reported that 13 suspects were arrested Tuesday, including six locals, five Hong Kong residents and two from the Chinese mainland, while the JP seized around HKD 500k ($64.5k) in cash. The investigation began in 2010 following a tip-off about loan sharks prowling casino floors looking for gamblers down on their luck. The sharks would offer loans in the form of gambling chips, while collecting commissions of 30% directly off the top, or 10% of every wager or anytime the ?lucky? baccarat gambler hit an eight or nine.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? The mother of a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl recovering after a double lung transplant says doctors tried to remove her breathing tube but were forced to reinsert it.
Janet Murnaghan (MUR'-nuh-han) says in a statement provided by a spokeswoman that her daughter, Sarah, "could not handle the reduced support" after the tube was removed Wednesday. She called the day "excruciating" and said it was "impossibly painful" watching her daughter struggle to breathe, so the girl was ultimately sedated and re-intubated.
Janet Murnaghan says doctors have assured the family that the day's events don't change Sarah's long-term prospects but just mean "she needs more time to regain her strength."
Sarah, who lives in Newtown Square, a Philadelphia suburb, suffers from severe cystic fibrosis. She underwent the transplant after a national debate over the organ allocation process.
Yesterday, we celebrated after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. But you know what a victory for marriage equality means? More weddings. And more places to celebrate them. Here are 12 beautiful chapels, gardens, and barns?one for each state where marriage is for all.
Wired Space Photo of the Day: Sun in Different Wavelengths The images of this Sun (Dec. 7, 2011) taken at almost the same time are shown in various wavelengths in various temperatures and layers of the Sun. In addition, we superimposed an illustration of the Sun's magnetic field lines to ...????
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TOKYO (Reuters) - One of All Nippon Airways' 787 Dreamliner jets, made by Boeing Co, had a cockpit message saying that the aircraft might not be able to supply power for its air-conditioning system, the Japanese airline said on Thursday.
The issue was not related to the lithium ion battery problems that had grounded the jets for three months from mid-January, Ryosei Nomura, an ANA spokesman, said.
All Dreamliner jets are under the microscope after Boeing installed a re-designed battery system and they resumed flying. Last week, two United Airlines Dreamliner jets were diverted due to separate oil-related problems.
More than 100 passengers who were supposed to fly on the ANA jet from Tokyo to Frankfurt on Thursday ended up taking a different plane that departed nearly eight hours later than originally scheduled, Nomura said.
ANA fixed the problem by exchanging components of a computer that controls electricity supply to the air-conditioning system, said Shinsuke Satake, another company spokesman.
You usually know an advertisement for McDonald's when you see it. Ethnically diverse group of friends who stay impossibly thin even though they eat at Mickey D's, perfectly dressed burgers and fries that you can almost smell, internal monologues about the deliciousness of the food, so on and so forth. These ads are not like that. They're abstract animations that show McDonald's in a completely different way.
Created by Helsinki-based animation studio Pinata, the video has 2d animation effects, 3D elements and particle simulation. It's a moving piece of art, basically. McDonald's released these three video ads for its McDonald's MyBurger competition in Finland. The video above is like a dark short you'd see from a scrappy Dreamworks. I can hardly believe it's for McDonald's. [Pinata via PSFK]
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) ? The officer who led a coup last year that plunged Mali into chaos asked for forgiveness from the Malian people during a ceremony meant to heal the rift between soldiers who supported the putsch and the presidential guard who fought to defend the former president.
Coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo said that he and his brothers and sisters in green-beret uniform "want to ask for forgiveness from Malians as a whole."
After the coup, the green berets led a purge of the red beret-wearing presidential guard. Many red berets were "disappeared," while others were imprisoned and allegedly tortured.
Interim President Dioncounda Traore said Wednesday the ceremony marked the reconciliation of the two sides and announced that all red beret soldiers still incarcerated had been freed.
This just in from The Atlantic?s Linda Douglass: an internal memo detailing changes on National Journal?s communications team. As most of you know, Douglass is leaving her role but will continue on in a more advisory position. The memo was not from Douglass, but someone who leaked it to us.
Hi all?
I wanted to let you know about a couple of exciting changes on the communications team. First, our uber-Editorial Booker, Emma Angerer, is being promoted to the position of Communications Director for National Journal, effective today.
See the rest of the memo?for what it?s worth, we hear Angerer has quite the fan club inside National Journal?s newsroom.?
Emma joined us nearly three years ago and single-handedly built an extremely successful booking operation?from scratch. Thanks to her sophisticated understanding of our content and knowledge of our talent, writers and editors from both National Journal and The Atlantic now appear regularly on television and radio every week. Emma has a reputation for credibility and great news sense among producers in DC and New York. She has boundless energy, is deeply loyal to our brands and is always brimming with smart ideas?qualities that will make her an excellent communications director for NJ.
And there is more good news: We have found someone great to step into Emma?s old job. Our new Editorial Booker is the 2012-2013 communications Fellow Kori Anderson, who has been working closely with Emma and learning from her for the last year. Kori has done a terrific job during her fellowship, helping the comms team with press releases, media lists, story pitches and producing some of our live TV and radio hits. She has proved herself to be a very quick study and already is doing an impressive job in her new position, booking writers from National Journal and The Atlantic on programs where they can showcase their work. Kori will be working on the 4th floor near Emma.
Emma and Kori will report to Emily Lenzner, the incoming VP of Global Communications, when she joins the company on July 8. Please welcome all of them to their new positions.
The preview version of Windows 8.1 is available to download and try out right now. Here's how to get it.
The update is available through the Windows Store, so you're going to need Windows 8 to try 8.1. Duh. Now, just go here and download the .exe from Microsoft (it should be live now), which will activate the upgrade in your Store app. The download itself is about 2GB.
You'll need to reboot, and when you're back, your store should have the update waiting for you. Just follow the instructions from there. Easy!
On the 63rd anniversary of the Korean War that divided the peninsula, hackers hit systems in both North and South Korea.
By Whitney Eulich,?Staff writer / June 25, 2013
A man walks by a gate at Cyber Terror Response Center of National Police Agency in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, June 25. South Korea said multiple government and private sector websites were hacked on Tuesday's anniversary of the start of the Korean War, and Seoul issued a cyberattack alert warning officials and citizens to take security measures.
Lee Jin-man/AP
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? A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
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Latin America Editor
Whitney Eulich is the Monitor's Latin America editor, overseeing regional coverage for CSMonitor.com and the weekly magazine. She also curates the Latin America Monitor Blog.
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As the Korean Peninsula awoke to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the start of the Korean War today, major government and media websites in both North and South Korea appeared to be under electronic attack.
Seoul said it was investigating cyber attacks on the websites for the presidential Blue House, prime minister?s office, and a handful of major media organizations. The South Korean intelligence service is also looking into whether or not the shutdown of some North Korean sites was due to being hacked, reports The Associated Press.
According to South Korea's Arirang News, a message referring to North Korean president appeared on screens in Seoul?s presidential office this morning: ?Hurrahs to Kim Jong-un, the president of a unified Korea!?
It is unclear who is responsible for these attacks and if they are linked. The hacker group ?Anonymous? has warned that it would target North Korea due to its strict controls over Internet access, specifically citing today?s date, reports The New York Times.
Less than 1 percent of North Koreans have access to the Internet.
There are reports of Twitter users claiming responsibility for the attacks in the South today, ?demanding that the Seoul government stop censoring Internet content and that its intelligence agency apologize for a recent political scandal in which government intelligence agents were accused of engaging in an online campaign to attack opposition candidates ahead of the Dec. 19, presidential election,? reports the Times.
Earlier this year a much more serious breach of Internet security in South Korea took down an estimated 48,000 computers and servers at banks and media institutions. Some banks were hamstrung for up to five days. North Korea was accused of being behind the cyber attack, the seventh such accusation from the South since 2008.
?Cyber attacks are much easier weapons for North Korea as they cost far less than missiles or nuclear tests, but they can send more people into a real panic,? Park Choon Sik, a Seoul Women?s University professor of cyber security, told Bloomberg at the time.
This last attack, in March, came just weeks after the United Nations slapped North Korea with renewed sanctions for conducting nuclear tests. Tensions heightened on the peninsula as a military hotline connecting the two countries was cut off, threats were made to close an important shared industrial complex, and North Korea warned of severing the Korean War armistice. The rhetoric of war went so far as to implicate a potential nuclear attack on various US cities.
According to The Christian Science Monitor?s correspondent in Seoul:
For all its bombast, North Korea may actually be?reluctant to enter into a military conflict with the South and its US allies because of the alliance?s superior military strength. But cyberattacks can be harmful, create a climate of fear, and avoid any direct consequences.???
This type of attack suits North Korea.
?Cyberwar is right up their street. It?s cheap and deniable,? says Aidan Foster Carter, a Korea expert at the University of Leeds.
South Korea may also have ?more to lose? than North Korea if ?the inter-Korean conflict were to move into cyberspace,? reports a separate AP story. There are more Internet connections than there are people in South Korea, according to 2012 OECD data.
?Many daily tasks [in South Korea] are performed online, from banking and the purchasing of movie or train tickets to social interactions. As such, South Koreans have a lot to lose from a malicious attack on the country?s IT infrastructure,? according to the Monitor.?
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Kim Il-sung Square in North Korea?s capital to commemorate the start of the three-year-long Korean War and protest the United States today, according to AP. Thousands gathered in South Korea to mark the date, with military drills taking place near the demilitarized zone between the two countries, as well.?
Contact: Michael Bishop michael.bishop@iop.org 01-179-301-032 Institute of Physics
Scientists in the US have developed a novel vaccination method that uses tiny gold particles to mimic a virus and carry specific proteins to the body's specialist immune cells.
The technique differs from the traditional approach of using dead or inactive viruses as a vaccine and was demonstrated in the lab using a specific protein that sits on the surface of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The results have been published today, 26 June, in IOP Publishing's journal Nanotechnology by a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University.
RSV is the leading viral cause of lower respiration tract infections, causing several hundred thousand deaths and an estimated 65 million infections a year, mainly in children and the elderly.
The detrimental effects of RSV come, in part, from a specific protein, called the F protein, which coats the surface of the virus. The protein enables the virus to enter into the cytoplasm of cells and also causes cells to stick together, making the virus harder to eliminate.
The body's natural defence to RSV is therefore directed at the F protein; however, up until now, researchers have had difficulty creating a vaccine that delivers the F protein to the specialised immune cells in the body. If successful, the F protein could trigger an immune response which the body could 'remember' if a subject became infected with the real virus.
In this study the researchers created exceptionally small gold nanorods, just 21 nanometres wide and 57 nanometres long, which were almost exactly the same shape and size as the virus itself. The gold nanorods were successfully coated with the RSV F proteins and were bonded strongly thanks to the unique physical and chemical properties of the nanorods themselves.
The researchers then tested the ability of the gold nanorods to deliver the F protein to specific immune cells, known as dendritic cells, which were taken from adult blood samples.
Dendritic cells function as processing cells in the immune system, taking the important information from a virus, such as the F protein, and presenting it to cells that can perform an action against them?the T cells are just one example of a cell that can take action.
Once the F protein-coated nanorods were added to a sample of dendritic cells, the researchers analysed the proliferation of T cells as a proxy for an immune response. They found that the protein-coated nanorods caused the T cells to proliferate significantly more compared to non-coated nanorods and just the F protein alone.
Not only did this prove that the coated-nanorods were capable of mimicking the virus and stimulating an immune response, it also showed that they were not toxic to human cells, offering significant safety advantages and increasing their potential as a real-life human vaccine.
Lead author of the study, Professor James Crowe, said: "A vaccine for RSV, which is the major cause of viral pneumonia in children, is sorely needed. This study shows that we have developed methods for putting RSV F protein into exceptionally small particles and presenting it to immune cells in a format that physically mimics the virus. Furthermore, the particles themselves are not infectious."
Due to the versatility of the gold nanorods, Professor Crowe believes that their potential use is not limited to RSV.
"This platform could be used to develop experimental vaccines for virtually any virus, and in fact other larger microbes such as bacteria and fungi.
"The studies we performed showed that the candidate vaccines stimulated human immune cells when they were interacted in the lab. The next steps to testing would be to test whether or not the vaccines work in vivo" Professor Crowe continued.
###
From 26 June 2013, this paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/24/29/295102
Notes to Editors
Contact
For further information, a full draft of the journal paper or contact with one of the researchers, contact IOP Press Officer, Michael Bishop:
Tel: 0117 930 1032
E-mail: Michael.bishop@iop.org
For more information on how to use the embargoed material above, please refer to our embargo policy.
IOP Publishing Journalist Area
The IOP Publishing Journalist Area gives journalists access to embargoed press releases, advanced copies of papers, supplementary images and videos. In addition to this, a weekly news digest is uploaded into the Journalist Area every Friday, highlighting a selection of newsworthy papers set to be published in the following week.
Login details also give free access to IOPscience, IOP Publishing's journal platform.
To apply for a free subscription to this service, please email Michael Bishop, IOP Press Officer, michael.bishop@iop.org, with your name, organisation, address and a preferred username.
Gold nanorod vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus
The published version of the paper "Gold nanorod vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus" (J W Stone et al 2013 Nanotechnology 24 295102) will be freely available online from 26 June 2013. It will be available from http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/24/29/295102
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology encompasses the understanding of the fundamental physics, chemistry, biology and technology of nanometre-scale objects.
IOP Publishing
IOP Publishing provides a range of journals, magazines, websites and services that enable researchers and research organisations to reach the widest possible audience for their research.
We combine the culture of a learned society with global reach and highly efficient and effective publishing systems and processes. With offices in the UK, US, Germany, China and Japan, and staff in many other locations including Mexico and Russia, we serve researchers in the physical and related sciences in all parts of the world.
IOP Publishing is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institute of Physics. The Institute is a leading scientific society promoting physics and bringing physicists together for the benefit of all. Any profits generated by IOP Publishing are used by the Institute to support science and scientists in both the developed and developing world. Go to ioppublishing.org.
The Institute of Physics
The Institute of Physics is a leading scientific society. We are a charitable organisation with a worldwide membership of more than 50,000, working together to advance physics education, research and application. We engage with policymakers and the general public to develop awareness and understanding of the value of physics and, through IOP Publishing, we are world leaders in professional scientific communications. Visit us at http://www.iop.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Michael Bishop michael.bishop@iop.org 01-179-301-032 Institute of Physics
Scientists in the US have developed a novel vaccination method that uses tiny gold particles to mimic a virus and carry specific proteins to the body's specialist immune cells.
The technique differs from the traditional approach of using dead or inactive viruses as a vaccine and was demonstrated in the lab using a specific protein that sits on the surface of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The results have been published today, 26 June, in IOP Publishing's journal Nanotechnology by a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University.
RSV is the leading viral cause of lower respiration tract infections, causing several hundred thousand deaths and an estimated 65 million infections a year, mainly in children and the elderly.
The detrimental effects of RSV come, in part, from a specific protein, called the F protein, which coats the surface of the virus. The protein enables the virus to enter into the cytoplasm of cells and also causes cells to stick together, making the virus harder to eliminate.
The body's natural defence to RSV is therefore directed at the F protein; however, up until now, researchers have had difficulty creating a vaccine that delivers the F protein to the specialised immune cells in the body. If successful, the F protein could trigger an immune response which the body could 'remember' if a subject became infected with the real virus.
In this study the researchers created exceptionally small gold nanorods, just 21 nanometres wide and 57 nanometres long, which were almost exactly the same shape and size as the virus itself. The gold nanorods were successfully coated with the RSV F proteins and were bonded strongly thanks to the unique physical and chemical properties of the nanorods themselves.
The researchers then tested the ability of the gold nanorods to deliver the F protein to specific immune cells, known as dendritic cells, which were taken from adult blood samples.
Dendritic cells function as processing cells in the immune system, taking the important information from a virus, such as the F protein, and presenting it to cells that can perform an action against them?the T cells are just one example of a cell that can take action.
Once the F protein-coated nanorods were added to a sample of dendritic cells, the researchers analysed the proliferation of T cells as a proxy for an immune response. They found that the protein-coated nanorods caused the T cells to proliferate significantly more compared to non-coated nanorods and just the F protein alone.
Not only did this prove that the coated-nanorods were capable of mimicking the virus and stimulating an immune response, it also showed that they were not toxic to human cells, offering significant safety advantages and increasing their potential as a real-life human vaccine.
Lead author of the study, Professor James Crowe, said: "A vaccine for RSV, which is the major cause of viral pneumonia in children, is sorely needed. This study shows that we have developed methods for putting RSV F protein into exceptionally small particles and presenting it to immune cells in a format that physically mimics the virus. Furthermore, the particles themselves are not infectious."
Due to the versatility of the gold nanorods, Professor Crowe believes that their potential use is not limited to RSV.
"This platform could be used to develop experimental vaccines for virtually any virus, and in fact other larger microbes such as bacteria and fungi.
"The studies we performed showed that the candidate vaccines stimulated human immune cells when they were interacted in the lab. The next steps to testing would be to test whether or not the vaccines work in vivo" Professor Crowe continued.
###
From 26 June 2013, this paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/24/29/295102
Notes to Editors
Contact
For further information, a full draft of the journal paper or contact with one of the researchers, contact IOP Press Officer, Michael Bishop:
Tel: 0117 930 1032
E-mail: Michael.bishop@iop.org
For more information on how to use the embargoed material above, please refer to our embargo policy.
IOP Publishing Journalist Area
The IOP Publishing Journalist Area gives journalists access to embargoed press releases, advanced copies of papers, supplementary images and videos. In addition to this, a weekly news digest is uploaded into the Journalist Area every Friday, highlighting a selection of newsworthy papers set to be published in the following week.
Login details also give free access to IOPscience, IOP Publishing's journal platform.
To apply for a free subscription to this service, please email Michael Bishop, IOP Press Officer, michael.bishop@iop.org, with your name, organisation, address and a preferred username.
Gold nanorod vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus
The published version of the paper "Gold nanorod vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus" (J W Stone et al 2013 Nanotechnology 24 295102) will be freely available online from 26 June 2013. It will be available from http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/24/29/295102
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology encompasses the understanding of the fundamental physics, chemistry, biology and technology of nanometre-scale objects.
IOP Publishing
IOP Publishing provides a range of journals, magazines, websites and services that enable researchers and research organisations to reach the widest possible audience for their research.
We combine the culture of a learned society with global reach and highly efficient and effective publishing systems and processes. With offices in the UK, US, Germany, China and Japan, and staff in many other locations including Mexico and Russia, we serve researchers in the physical and related sciences in all parts of the world.
IOP Publishing is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institute of Physics. The Institute is a leading scientific society promoting physics and bringing physicists together for the benefit of all. Any profits generated by IOP Publishing are used by the Institute to support science and scientists in both the developed and developing world. Go to ioppublishing.org.
The Institute of Physics
The Institute of Physics is a leading scientific society. We are a charitable organisation with a worldwide membership of more than 50,000, working together to advance physics education, research and application. We engage with policymakers and the general public to develop awareness and understanding of the value of physics and, through IOP Publishing, we are world leaders in professional scientific communications. Visit us at http://www.iop.org
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
U-shaped curve revealed for association between fish consumption and atrial fibrillationPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jacqueline Partarrieu press@escardio.org 33-492-947-756 European Society of Cardiology
Moderation seems to be key when it comes to eating fish to prevent atrial fibrillation
Athens, Greece, 24 June 2013. Moderation seems to be key when it comes to eating fish to prevent atrial fibrillation (AF) according to an observational study presented at the EHRA EUROPACE congress held 23 to 26 June in Athens, Greece.
The study found a U-shaped association between consumption of marine n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) and the risk of developing AF, with people who have both low and high intakes found to suffer more from AF than those with median intakes. The lowest risk of AF was found in those who consumed around 0.63 g marine n-3 PUFA per day, which corresponds to around two servings of fatty (oily) fish per week.
Earlier studies have reported that regular consumption of fish can exert beneficial effects in preventing the development of AF. Notably, in the Cardiovascular Health study, which included 4,815 participants, a 28% lower risk of AF was observed among people who consumed fish one to four times per week compared with those who ate fish less than once per month. However, such observed associations have not been confirmed in all cohort studies?8.
In the current study, Doctor Thomas Rix and colleagues from Aalborg University Hospital in Denmark, set out to examine the hypothesis that a negative association exists between the development of AF and consumption of n-3 PUFA. "Since AF is present in over six million people in Europe and associated with considerable morbidity, mortality and economic costs, preventing AF by achievable dietary changes would be of major public interest," said Dr. Rix.
The investigators made use of the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health cohort 9, which between 1993 and 1997 enrolled a total of 57,053 Danish participants aged 50 to 64 years. The study, funded by the Danish Cancer society, had been initiated with the primary objective of exploring the role of diet in the development of cancer. Baseline data recorded for the study included a semi quantitative food frequency questionnaire with detailed questions about the consumption of fish and food products containing fish that enabled the calculation of average n-3 PUFA intakes. Levels of N-3 PUFA/day were divided into quintiles: with quintile 1 representing 0.00-0.38g marine n-3 PUFA/ day; quintile 2 representing 0.39-0.53g marine n-3 PUFA/day; quintile 3 representing 0.54 to 0.73 g marine n-3 PUFA/day; quintile 4 0.74 to 0.99 g marine n-3 PUFA/day; and quintile 5 1.00-7.22 g marine n-3 PUFA/day.
Follow-up of AF events in the population was undertaken using the Danish National Patient Registry, which recorded discharge diagnoses from hospital admissions, emergency rooms and outpatient clinics. The registry was facilitated by the Danish practice of identifying every citizen with a unique personal identification number that enables cross links to be made between different national registries.
Altogether a total of 3,425 incident cases of AF were registered during 13.6 years of follow-up. When data was analysed in a multivariate Cox regression model, in comparison to the lowest quintile a 9% lower risk of AF was seen for the second quintile (HR 0.91 95% CI 0.81-1.02); a 13 % lower risk of AF was seen for the third quintile (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.78-0.98, p=0.02); a 4% lower rate was seen for the fourth quintile (HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.86-1.07) and a 3% increased rate was seen for the 5th quintile (HR 1.03, 95% CI 0.92-1.15).
"The 13% observed lower risk of AF seen at moderate intakes of marine n-3 PUFA compared with low intakes may be related to a reduction in ischemic heart disease and anti-inflammatory effects in addition to direct anti arrhythmic effects," said Dr. Rix. He noted that in one study, treatment with 1.8g n-3PUFA/day in patients with low intakes of fish resulted in prolongation of the atrial effective refractory period and less inducible AF, both in subjects with AF8 and subjects without AF10.
The biological mechanisms behind the higher risk of AF observed for high intakes of n-3 PUFA compared to moderate intakes were more difficult to explain," said Dr. Rix. "We can only speculate that the balance between AF inhibiting and AF promoting effects can change according to co morbidities and intakes of marine n-3PUFA. This is the first time that such an association has been shown and it needs to be explored in further studies. However, it may help explain some of the contradictory results obtained in earlier studies."
###
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
U-shaped curve revealed for association between fish consumption and atrial fibrillationPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jacqueline Partarrieu press@escardio.org 33-492-947-756 European Society of Cardiology
Moderation seems to be key when it comes to eating fish to prevent atrial fibrillation
Athens, Greece, 24 June 2013. Moderation seems to be key when it comes to eating fish to prevent atrial fibrillation (AF) according to an observational study presented at the EHRA EUROPACE congress held 23 to 26 June in Athens, Greece.
The study found a U-shaped association between consumption of marine n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) and the risk of developing AF, with people who have both low and high intakes found to suffer more from AF than those with median intakes. The lowest risk of AF was found in those who consumed around 0.63 g marine n-3 PUFA per day, which corresponds to around two servings of fatty (oily) fish per week.
Earlier studies have reported that regular consumption of fish can exert beneficial effects in preventing the development of AF. Notably, in the Cardiovascular Health study, which included 4,815 participants, a 28% lower risk of AF was observed among people who consumed fish one to four times per week compared with those who ate fish less than once per month. However, such observed associations have not been confirmed in all cohort studies?8.
In the current study, Doctor Thomas Rix and colleagues from Aalborg University Hospital in Denmark, set out to examine the hypothesis that a negative association exists between the development of AF and consumption of n-3 PUFA. "Since AF is present in over six million people in Europe and associated with considerable morbidity, mortality and economic costs, preventing AF by achievable dietary changes would be of major public interest," said Dr. Rix.
The investigators made use of the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health cohort 9, which between 1993 and 1997 enrolled a total of 57,053 Danish participants aged 50 to 64 years. The study, funded by the Danish Cancer society, had been initiated with the primary objective of exploring the role of diet in the development of cancer. Baseline data recorded for the study included a semi quantitative food frequency questionnaire with detailed questions about the consumption of fish and food products containing fish that enabled the calculation of average n-3 PUFA intakes. Levels of N-3 PUFA/day were divided into quintiles: with quintile 1 representing 0.00-0.38g marine n-3 PUFA/ day; quintile 2 representing 0.39-0.53g marine n-3 PUFA/day; quintile 3 representing 0.54 to 0.73 g marine n-3 PUFA/day; quintile 4 0.74 to 0.99 g marine n-3 PUFA/day; and quintile 5 1.00-7.22 g marine n-3 PUFA/day.
Follow-up of AF events in the population was undertaken using the Danish National Patient Registry, which recorded discharge diagnoses from hospital admissions, emergency rooms and outpatient clinics. The registry was facilitated by the Danish practice of identifying every citizen with a unique personal identification number that enables cross links to be made between different national registries.
Altogether a total of 3,425 incident cases of AF were registered during 13.6 years of follow-up. When data was analysed in a multivariate Cox regression model, in comparison to the lowest quintile a 9% lower risk of AF was seen for the second quintile (HR 0.91 95% CI 0.81-1.02); a 13 % lower risk of AF was seen for the third quintile (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.78-0.98, p=0.02); a 4% lower rate was seen for the fourth quintile (HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.86-1.07) and a 3% increased rate was seen for the 5th quintile (HR 1.03, 95% CI 0.92-1.15).
"The 13% observed lower risk of AF seen at moderate intakes of marine n-3 PUFA compared with low intakes may be related to a reduction in ischemic heart disease and anti-inflammatory effects in addition to direct anti arrhythmic effects," said Dr. Rix. He noted that in one study, treatment with 1.8g n-3PUFA/day in patients with low intakes of fish resulted in prolongation of the atrial effective refractory period and less inducible AF, both in subjects with AF8 and subjects without AF10.
The biological mechanisms behind the higher risk of AF observed for high intakes of n-3 PUFA compared to moderate intakes were more difficult to explain," said Dr. Rix. "We can only speculate that the balance between AF inhibiting and AF promoting effects can change according to co morbidities and intakes of marine n-3PUFA. This is the first time that such an association has been shown and it needs to be explored in further studies. However, it may help explain some of the contradictory results obtained in earlier studies."
###
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Senate passage of historic immigration legislation offering citizenship to millions looks near-certain after the bill cleared a key hurdle with votes to spare.
A final vote in the Senate on Thursday or Friday would send the issue to the House, where conservative Republicans in the majority oppose citizenship for anyone living in the country illegally.
Some GOP lawmakers have appealed to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, not to permit any immigration legislation to come to a vote for fear that whatever its contents, it would open the door to an unpalatable compromise with the Senate. At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee is in the midst of approving a handful of measures related to immigration, action that ordinarily is a prelude to votes in the full House.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Tuesday that the Senate's advancement of stronger border security measures makes it "even more likely" that immigration reform will pass the House and become law. He said that the House won't take up the Senate bill but will do its own legislation, and added, "the majority of Republicans support the border security" as the keystone of immigration reform. He spoke on CBS' "This Morning."
"Now is the time to do it," President Barack Obama said Monday at the White House before meeting with nine business executives who support a change in immigration laws. "I hope that we can get the strongest possible vote out of the Senate so that we can then move to the House and get this done before the summer break" beginning in early August.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday she thinks it's important for the House to have its own bill and said, "Let's be optimistic about it."
Pelosi told CNN she thinks it has an excellent chance of passing there because GOP lawmakers are the party's poor showing with Hispanic voters in last year's presidential election "sends an eloquent message" to them.
Obama's prodding came several hours before the Senate voted 67-27 to advance the measure over a procedural hurdle. The tally was seven more than the 60 needed, with 15 Republicans joining Democrats in voting yes.
"I think we're building momentum," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who worked with Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., on a $38 billion package of security improvements that helped bring Republicans on board by doubling the number of border patrol agents and calling for hundreds of miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico. Those changes brought border security spending in the bill to $46 billion.
"The bill has been improved dramatically tonight by this vote, there's no question," Corker said. "My sense is we're going to pass an immigration bill out of the United States Senate which will be no doubt historic and I think something that's very, very important to this nation."
Last-minute frustration was evident among opponents. In an unusual slap at members of his own party as well as Democrats, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said it appeared that lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle "very much want a fig leaf" on border security to justify a vote for immigration.
Senate officials said some changes were still possible to the bill before it leaves the Senate ? alterations that would swell the number of votes in favor.
At the same time, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who voted to advance the measure during the day, said he may yet end up opposing it unless he wins changes he is seeking.
Senate Democrats were unified on the vote.
Republicans were anything but on a bill that some party leaders say offers the GOP a chance to show a more welcoming face to Hispanic voters, but which tea party-aligned lawmakers assail as amnesty for those who have violated the law.
At its core, the Senate bill would create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States.
The measure also would create a new program for temporary farm laborers to come into the country, and another for lower-skilled workers to emigrate permanently. At the same time, it calls for an expansion of an existing visa program for highly-skilled workers, a gesture to high-tech companies that rely heavily on foreigners.
In addition to border security, the measure phases in a mandatory program for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers, and calls for a separate program to track the comings and goings of foreigners at the nation's seaports and airports.
Ted Devine recently wrote an article about?conducting a midyear assessment of one?s business, that I highly recommend.? But simply getting through the quarter can be a challenge for some business owners.
Pierre DeBois is the founder of Zimana, a consultancy providing strategic analysis to small and medium sized businesses that rely on web analytics data. A Gary, Indiana native, Pierre is currently based in Brooklyn. He blogs about marketing, finance, social media, and analytics at Zimana blog. 
Nevada Gaming Control Board chief A.G. Burnett told Congress it was ?common knowledge? that Macau?s VIP gaming rooms have ?long been dominated by Asian organized crime.? Burnett made the comments on Thursday while addressing the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which is investigating alleged money laundering activities in the Asian gambling hot spot. Burnett suggested that since the arrival in Macau of three US-based casino companies ? Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts ? ?much of those triad activities had actually decreased in one fashion or another.?
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